Eternal Sunshine
by knee-high-socks-and-doctor-who
Summary: If I were brave enough, I would talk to that man. I would talk to the tall blond man that doesn't look a day over twenty, with a deep angry sorrow filling those pretty blue eyes. I would ask him what's wrong, and maybe he'd tell me, maybe he wouldn't. And if I were braver than that, I would tell him my secret. And maybe he'd forgive me. AU Steve/Loki.
1. For Blue Skies

I'm still trying to decide whether this is an intro or an one-shot. Let me know if I should continue.

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**Song:**

**For Blue Skies- Strays Don't Sleep  
**

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I tempt myself a lot of the time.

If I were brave enough, I would talk to that man. I would talk to the tall blond man that doesn't look a day over twenty, with a deep angry sorrow filling those pretty blue eyes. I would ask him what's wrong, and maybe he'd tell me, maybe he wouldn't. And if I were braver than that, I would tell him my secret. And maybe he'd forgive me.

Or maybe he wouldn't.

He lives in a house out in the country with peeling white paint, and most of the time he's outside working on his truck or his motorcycle, staining his pants with oil and grease. I always want to talk to him, but I'm afraid that I don't know what to say. What would I say?

Would I tell him my secret?

I'll stand at the end of the gravel driveway, and watch from there as I wait for my body to move against my will. I want to tell him, get the secret off my chest, but there's a hazy fog that always clouds up my intentions. I don't even know this man's name, but what I do know is that he should know my secret.

Maybe then I'd feel better about myself.

"Are you ever going to talk to him?"

"I'd like to forget my past, Thor, not relive it."

My brother pauses on the other end of the phone. "But you always tell me about how you wish you were brave enough to just go tell him."

"I ruined his life, he's not going to accept the fact with a smile and a handshake." I chew along the already gnawed at section on the inside of my cheek. "Don't you have things to do?"

"I was the one who called _you._ So shouldn't that be your answer?"

I hang up.

I'm tired of being a coward.

My feet crunch loudly over the newly laid out gravel, a sound I'm not accustomed to.

This is the first time I've ever gotten brave enough to come close to this house, to come close to where this man lives. He's outside like always, and he's fixing up an old motorcycle, his hands covered in oil. It's a hotter day, and his skin glistens with sweat.

I'm scared he'll throw the wrench at me.

But now I don't want to tell him. As I get closer, I realize just how much of a coward I am at heart, and that Thor always had the guts to do anything he pleased. He would ask out girls with no problem, he would jump off great heights, and he wasn't afraid to tell anyone how he felt. I was always the opposite. I was the rejected brother that no one liked.

I never graduated Med School because of my secret. Thor did though, and he found his way working as a nicely paid mechanic after he graduated Tech School, and then he got married to a nice lady named Jane. She had just recently found out she was pregnant.

And I was still the reject brother that no one liked.

I had done nothing with my life because I couldn't. I still couldn't, because I was too scared to go out and do anything.

"Um, can I help you?"

He sets the greasy rag down on the seat of the motorcycle. His eyes are much bluer up close, and for a second I forget to breathe. Then I remember my reason for being here, and it hurts me more to breathe than talk. Everything inside me hurts, and I don't want to say anything, because I know my chances of anything are ruined.

"What do you need?" his voice is brittle and cold.

"I—" I swallow back the tears. "I'd like to— um. I just need to say—"

"Say what? I don't have time for strangers babbling on my doorstep."

I don't want to cry, but I'm just so weak right here and right now. I let a tear slip, and the expression on the man's face is shocked. I guess he's not used to people arriving on his property crying.

"I want to apologize for what I did," I stare at my feet. "I'm a stupid, terrible, selfish person, and I ruined your life."

I can't bear to stand there for any longer than that.

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Reviews? Should I continue?


	2. Echo

These chapters should be relatively short, so I can update faster. Plus, this story feels to me like it would have shorter chapters, but a larger amount of them. I dunno.

And a big thanks to Lunar Orphan for giving me some beloved plot ideas to make this more interesting. Thanks a bunch hon!

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**Song:  
**

**Echo- Jason Walker  
**

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**Past**

I watched from outside the window of his hospital room. Doctors and nurses passed me in the hallway, but I paid no mind to them. I was too fixated on watching his sleeping form.

Thor called five times that night, but I missed every single one of them.

On purpose.

If he knew what I was doing, he'd kill me. He'd yell at me and tell me how much of a fool I was, and I would just ignore his incessant chatter. He always talked too much. I knew what I was doing, anyways. He didn't need to tell me what to do.

_"Make him forget."_

**Present**

The next time I see him, he's sitting in the diner in town. I want to talk to him again for some reason, but I resist and keep walking down the street.

A hand catches at my shoulder, and I turn to see him, towering over me with confusion laced into his blue eyes. "Who are you?" he asks, almost demands.

"You don't know me," I whisper, and attempt to pull away.

"Yes I do," a look of vague recognition crosses his features. "How did you ruin my life? Who _are _you?"

Tears prick at my eyes again. "You don't know me."

"Yes I do!" he shakes. "Tell me your name!"

"I don't even know _your _name!" I nearly shout. "Why should I tell you mine?"

He sets his jaw, and then swallows back the anger that's probably building in his throat. "Then tell me how you ruined my life."

"I won't," I whisper. "I couldn't. You're not supposed to know me."

He fists his hands in his hair. "But I just _know _you. I don't know how, but I just do."

"I can't tell you!" I start crying again.

And I walk away like a coward.

**Past**

Why did I get in that car?

I don't know.

I tried to escape him once, but it seemed that God had other plans for me. He decided it was time for _me _to be the bad guy, and I had no choice in it. My inebriated self had no choice in it.

Why did I have to be such a terrible person?

I felt pain in my side, and I knew there was glass there, imbedded deep into my body. But that didn't matter, because soon I was being hauled away, and all I could see was the flash of police lights and a splash of blood on the blacktop.

It wasn't even my blood.

Why couldn't I ever escape him?

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"Hey Thor?"

"Yes?"

"Should I erase him?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Like, from my memory. I don't deserve to remember him."

"You're talking crazy, you need to sleep."

"It should be fair though."

"Fair?"

"Yes, _fair._"


	3. So Here We Are

I'm sorry I'm updating so fast. I just keep pumping out chapters for this.

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**Song:**

**So Here We Are- Bloc Party  
**

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I wake with an aching back.

Ugly, grey light filters in through my windows, and I sit up in bed. I absently touch my bare abdomen, fingertips tracing over the white scar there left from the accident. My ribs ache when it's rainy, and it's always hard to get it to go away. No matter how many painkillers I take, it just doesn't seem to go away.

I'm still tempting myself. I want to talk to him, I want to tell him everything that's happened, but something's stopping me.

But it doesn't take long before I'm walking up his driveway, gravel crunching underneath my shoes.

Today he's inside.

It takes me a bit before I actually climb those steps to the porch and knock on the screen door. Somewhere inside of me I hope that he won't answer so I won't have to follow through with what I've come to doing.

_"Why are you erasing him? If you're erasing yourself, why would you want—?"_

_ "I don't need to know his name. It's that stupid name that makes me remember."_

_ "He didn't ask for this."_

_ "But I did."_

The doors opens, and I stare up at him. His blond hair is disheveled and messy and his clothes seem to have been thrown on haphazardly. His eyes are rimmed red, from what though I don't know. He clears his voice and leans in the frame of the door, waiting for me to speak. This is the moment where I wish I 'd chosen to at least remember his name.

"Hi, my name's Loki and I am the drunk driver who killed your husband and son."

**Past**

"You wish to erase his memories of you?"

I nodded in response to the nurse. "And— to erase his name from mine."

"Alright," she sighed. "Bring him in."

I waited till the procedure was over, and then I left. If I saw his face when he didn't know me, it would hurt even more than just the thought. I came back the next day, and I couldn't put a name to his face for the next three years.

I liked it better that way.

He didn't know me. He was free of me, and he could start over again. I was too much of a burden.

**Present**

"_What?_"

"I came to apologize," I swallow back tears. "For all of my wrongdoings."

"_All?_" he looks like he's going to cry as well. "What else could you have done?"

"So many things you can't even begin to imagine." My confession is over. It's out, it's gone but I still don't feel the relief yet. The look on his face tears through me like a snowplow and god _it hurts_. "I let you go. I erased you."

He's gripping the doorframe so hard I think he's going to rip it off. "You _killed_, Tony and Peter?"

I let go. I let it all come out. "And before that I erased myself from your memory. You don't remember me, and I can't remember your name. I thought it best if I stayed away from you, because all we did was hurt when we were together. That's why I'm gone from your mind."

He's crying now, nearly sobbing. "How could _you do that_?"

"I thought it was the best thing for us."

And then he's slamming the door in my face.

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OH MY GOD I KILLED TONY STARK AND PETER PARKER I'M SUCH A BAD PERSON.

Review?


	4. Coming To Terms

Yes, another chapter.

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**Song:**

**Coming To Terms- Carolina Liar  
**

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I take a vacation for the week, and stay with my brother an hour away in the city.

They live near the ocean, and I take walks in the morning along the shore. It clears my head, and I feel better. I can escape reality, and all the shitty things I did. I can't even talk to Thor without him bringing up 'do the right thing'. His version and my version of that are very different.

I'm not here on the beach to meet pretty girls and hook up; I'm here to clear my head.

I almost contemplate for a moment erasing him from my mind, but I know that will do me no good. If I erase him, there will be nothing left of my life. I just badly want to make things right.

But I guess God has other ideas.

A jogger runs right into me, and I jerk back, apologizing before trying to scoot away from them. The scent hits me like a dose of nostalgia, and I recognize it. Then I start to panic.

"_Loki_."

I'm trying to hide behind my sunglasses, and it isn't working at all. He grabs me by the arm and hauls me backwards so he can talk to me. He doesn't look any better than before, and I then I feel doubly bad. I guess he got the same idea as me, to come out here to the shore to clear his head.

"We need to talk."

Those four words are like poison to my mind, because I know I've heard them before, in that same voice. "No we don't," I whisper, and for a moment I don't think he can hear me over the crashing of the waves. "I was under the impression we came to an understanding."

"An _understanding?_" the way he says it makes the idea sound ridiculous, and it probably is in his mind. "I only just recently met you— or so I thought. And then— and then you come out and tell me all these things that you did? I think we deserve a good talk."

"You're the same as ever," I say. "You're still the same, and I can't believe it. You're stubborn, and you're always trying to make people happy, but when it comes down to yourself you don't care." I jab him in the chest. "I'm a terrible person, and I ruined your life. I thought it would be better if you didn't know who I was."

"You killed the love of my life."

"I used to be the love of your life."

"And my _son_."

He knows that'll shut me up, and it works.

"_Look_," I sigh. "I never intended for that to happen, but I'm a loser, and I'm selfish, and I wasn't thinking. So basically, I've ruined your life twice, but you can only remember one of the times."

"Why'd you let me start over?" he whispers, and I recognize the sadness and hurt in his eyes too well. "Was it hard letting me go? Or was it just that easy, that you didn't care about me enough to feel bad about erasing yourself?"

"For god's sake, I loved you!" I push him away from me. "I just— I did and said some terrible things, and I don't think you deserved having to remember our terrible relationship. You deserved better than me." It's then that I try to walk away, but he catches my arm again.

"Do you still love me?"

I shake him off. "Of course not. I gave you up a long time ago."

I know I'm lying to myself the second I say it.

_I'm a fake._


	5. Heavy in Your Arms

I don't know what the terrain in California is an hour away from San Francisco going East, so please excuse the inacuracies. I'd ask my grandmother, but whatever...

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**Song:**

**Heavy in Your Arms- Florence + The Machine  
**

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The entire vacation Thor is telling me how I should move to San Francisco with them, and try to do something with my life again. But I feel like it would still be really incomplete even if I were trying to carry on my normal life.

I go home, and Jane tells me to feel better and come and visit whenever I feel like it. Thor claps me on the back and drives me home, a fog settling over the bay.

It's eerie.

**Past**

They had invited me out for a party.

There would be drinks, yes, but I was assuming my ride would stay sober. The kid never drank, so I'd just clapped him on the back and went for the booze. Bruce was a good kid. He wouldn't do anything stupid.

Or so I assumed.

By the end of the party, I couldn't find him. I had my car, and my keys, and my brother lived an hour away, parents gone. What was I supposed to do, sit out on the curb until I was sober enough to drive? No, that would just be lame.

And so I drove.

It wasn't all that late, but the streets were completely deserted. I knew that at least if I managed to crash I'd be the only one getting hurt, and maybe a tree or two, that would be all.

But my stupidity got the best of me.

I killed a man and a one-year-old boy, and injured another man very badly. One man that I knew all too well.

I still couldn't remember his name.

Jagged pieces of glass that had broken off from the windshield were imbedded in every spot on my body. I dragged myself out of the wreckage, and collapsed on the side of the road, crying my eyes out, as I knew what I had done.

I had ruined his life again.

**Present**

Coffee is unappetizing. Food is unappetizing. I just feel like I'm going to puke.

The nightmare always leaves me nauseous afterward, and sometimes I even have to bolt to the bathroom so I can puke my guts out. It's mostly dry heaving though because I hardly eat anything anymore, and this worries Thor. He always asks me how I'm eating, and how things are going, but the only thing I can think of is how I can get it off my chest.

But now it's gone.

I ignore his calls, and just collapse on the couch as I listen to the answering machine pick up for the umpteenth time. He leaves the same messages, and I delete them afterward. I think he's started to figure my system out though.

I feel sick again, but avoid the bathroom. I haven't eaten anything all day, and it's almost noon. Some would call me anorexic, but I'm just simply not hungry anymore.

I just simply don't care.

At the sound of a motorcycle in the driveway though, I manage to drag myself off the couch and over to the screen door.

_He'll keep chasing me no matter how far I run._


End file.
